Promise in Silence
by GhostoftheMotif
Summary: Helplessness can inspire the promises a person is most desperate to keep. Somewhere, Prussia is dying. Austria tries to comfort Hungary while coming to terms with his own emotions. Implied Prussia/Austria/Hungary


**Author's Note:** Here's my Saturday update! I wrote this fic a while ago for bridgedtsmidge18 on lj. Hope you guys like it!

**Disclaimer:** I am a broke college student, not the owner of Hetalia.

Austria couldn't be sure of the precise time it would happen, only that it would be during the night. He'd said his goodbyes; they all had, and they all knew that the next morning another of their kind would be gone. No one would call. It would be weeks before they gave their condolences. Silence and peace were the least they could give to Germany. All Austria could be sure of was that the nation he'd grown with, fought against, fought alongside… that nation would soon be dead. Austria didn't know what it was that he'd be losing. They'd never been what one would call friends. Their relationship was too multi-faceted for that simple name. He'd long since mastered hating Prussia, despite the way the emotion mixed with intrigue and camaraderie, but he'd never mastered caring for him or missing him when he was gone. He feared the sentiment would master him now, before he could subjugate it.

"Austria… I…" Hungary murmured from beside him, body curled against his in the night air. Her voice held the note of someone trying to keep each syllable steady while knowing it wasn't possible. "I don't want him to die." The last time she'd said that to him, it had been his own sword at Prussia's throat.

He was silent for a moment. When he spoke it felt as though the words were trapped in his chest, a dull tremor. "I don't either."

A shudder passed through her. Together their hands clenched. Austria's head turned up to the sky; Hungary's head bowed with the rest of her body. They wouldn't sleep. They couldn't when they knew that he was dying. It would have felt like they were running and leaving him behind; Prussia had never run, but tonight he wasn't even given the option. There was nowhere he could escape to, and because of that there was nowhere _they _could escape to. This was real, this was true, and they would be awake as they knew Prussia must be.

Austria didn't know what state he'd have been in if he hadn't been so preoccupied with Hungary's well being. She and Prussia had been close, caught in that same void between friend and something more, but where Austria had denied the connection, Hungary had accepted their relationship with the same fire with which she accepted everything. And now it was burning her alive. All he could do was hold her and try to stave off his own grief before it rendered him useless.

He pulled her against his chest and laid back against the grass. The bricks of the low garden wall behind him grazed his head, and he edged away from them. The soil was warm in spite of the chill in the air. For a moment he wanted nothing more than to sink back into it and become mindless with the dirt. The stars above only served to increase the sense of distance and helplessness. Aflame and powerful, but untouchable and unchangeable.

"Germany's with him, isn't he?" Her voice was faint, a wavering breath. "He's not alone…"

He cradled her head gently, running his fingers through her hair. "No… he's not alone." Pressing his lips to the soft skin of her temple, his voice dropped to a whisper. "And even if he was, he's brave. He won't be afraid."

"I don't want him to be brave. I want him to be alive." Strained, aggrieved, but forceful and passionate as well. Hungary had mourned this coming night for over a year now, since the rest of the world had seen its inevitable conclusion. But when Hungary mourned, it was never mere sorrow. Anger and the unquenchable need to do something, _anything_, laced its fingers around her heart and she raged as much as she wept.

Austria's grip around her tightened. There was nothing he could say, and he knew it. For all his eloquence, in this matter his thoughts were insufficient and unworthy of being voiced. He couldn't even comprehend what he was feeling himself; he'd spent too many years suppressing it, and now he was attempting to grasp an entire life's worth of emotion in the span of a few hours. How could he help Hungary understand something he had been so eager to deny? He wanted to ease this anguish, but he felt that any comfort he could give wouldn't be enough. It wasn't often that a nation died. When their children and leaders passed on, they were prepared for it. But when it was one of their own, a voice and a smile they had spent centuries with in the understanding that they were immortal… even the most emotionally versed of their kind could not be prepared.

One of her hands clenched in the fabric over his chest and she supported herself above him until she could meet his eyes. Her hair fell around her face in disorderly ringlets that managed to be as beautiful as ever. Where the flower should have been, there was black blade twined with gold, a clip that she'd used as a weapon more than once. It had been a gift from Prussia, years ago. He raised his hand to press his fingers to the cool metal.

Her voice was stronger, but still so pained. "I want to see him again. I want to hear him laugh. I want to get mad at him and forgive him. I want to hear the two of you argue and make up." Hungary's eyes closed, her face cast in shadow. Austria couldn't see the tears, but he could feel them against his skin. "What are we going to do without him? Austria, I…"

Wordlessly, he shook his head and guided her face down to his own. He kissed a line from her temple to the corner of her mouth, lips brushing against the thin wet streaks over her cheek as though his touch could make them vanish. Her hands cupped his face, turned it to her completely. She opened her eyes briefly before she pressed her mouth to his. He could feel her shaking, could feel the tremor in her lips.

She pulled away, rested her head at the nape of his neck, clinging to him. "I don't know what to do."

Austria closed his eyes. There was nothing they could do for Prussia that would save him, but tomorrow, and the day after, and _years_ after they could do something else. "We're going to take care of Germany," he said, tone somber and even. "And France and Spain, if they let us and need us. We'll take care of what he'll leave behind."

Hungary nodded weakly, a small noise parting her lips that sounded enough like 'yes'. Then they fell silent, the wind nipping gently at their clothes and moonlight touching them with a constant reminder of how little time was left.

Beyond the shadow of a doubt, Austria knew that it was the nation who was still with him that mattered most now, the woman who had been so strong and so important to both of them. She was alive, and Austria felt that her survival and the survival of Germany would have been enough for Gilbert Weillschmidt. So he held her and made a vow to guard what had always been precious to them both. Austria let the warmth of the body above him soothe the wound that he'd never dared to name and now never would.

He'd never leave her, he swore it. He wouldn't let this happen to her again.

The wind shifted Hungary's hair, and he moved his fingertips over the loose strands to tuck them behind her ear. Then he drew his hand away in sudden alarm, watching the line of blood form on his fingers from where he'd pressed the blade too close. For a moment, Austria felt that it was Prussia saying he had heard his silent promise and would hold him to it. Austria's eyes fell half-lidded, and he mouthed the words _I'll keep her safe_.

With a sense of desperation, he took a breath and imagined they were younger and that there was a third body beside his, that the sun was overhead, and that in a few moments he'd get up and complain about the dirt on his clothes. The third person would mock him, and Hungary would laugh, and they would smile because they knew they were the reason why. He imagined they were happy.

Then Hungary stifled a sob, the sky above him was dark, and somehow he knew Prussia was dead.


End file.
